CCRI Players to present ‘Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead’

Dec. 1, 2017

Francis Gilleese plays Rosencrantz opposite Katie Russell as Guildenstern in the CCRI
Players’ production of Tom Stoppard’s 1966 tragicomedy from Dec. 7 to 10 at the Liston
Campus in Providence.

What happens to two minor players in “Hamlet,” when they are off stage? The Community
College of Rhode Island Players will present Tom Stoppard’s answer to that question
when they stage “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead” next week at the Liston Campus
in Providence.

Stoppard gives Rosencrantz and Guildenstern a place at center stage while Hamlet,
Ophelia, Claudius and Gertrude are “just passing through.” Stoppard said his main
interest in creating the play was “to exploit a situation which seemed to me to have
enormous dramatic and comic potential – of these two guys who in Shakespeare’s context
don’t really know what they’re doing. The little they are told is mainly lies, and
there’s no reason to suppose that they ever find out why they are killed. And, probably
more in the early 1960s than at any other time, that would strike a young playwright
as being a pretty good thing to explore.”

While “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead” remains Stoppard’s most famous play,
his other work has garnered critical acclaim and won several awards. In all, he has
written more than 20 plays, and his screenplay for “Shakespeare in Love” (1998) earned
him and co-writer Marc Norman an Oscar and a Golden Globe for Best Screenplay.

Performances will be presented in the Liston Campus auditorium, 1 Hilton St., Providence,
at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, Dec. 7, 8 and 9, and 2 p.m. Saturday
and Sunday, Dec. 9 and 10.

The CCRI Players’ production of “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead” is directed
by Associate Professor Theodore R. Clement. Set design is by Associate Professor Luke
J. Sutherland, with lighting design by Steve Williams, costume design by Professor
Marilyn Salvatore and sound design by Erin Archer. The stage manager is Shoshana Adler
of Cranston, assisted by Kyle Renee Newport Russell of Riverside. The assistant director
is Victoria Ezikovich of Providence. Trey Hendley of Providence is dramaturg and assistant
costume designer, and Joana Carvalho of Cumberland is properties master. Justin Carroll
is the technical director.